Made in Mansfield – In Conversation with Playwright Kevin Fegan
Jul 11, 2017
Made in Mansfield – In Conversation with Playwright Kevin Fegan
Kevin Fegan has been writing plays for three decades, and has written more than 50 plays to commission. His work has won, and been nominated for, numerous awards, including 9 nominations in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, with Slave, winning Best New Play in 2011. He has written plays for BBC Radio 4 and has also published 10 books of poetry.
First Art first worked with Kevin in 2015, when he brought vignettes from his Down the Line community theatre commission to Bolsover Stories Festival. Work which will be part of a spectacular theatre show at Barrow Hill Roundhouse this September.
In 2017, First Art commissioned Kevin’s newest work Bess: The Commoner Queen, a new theatre piece about local legend Bess of Hardwick. The play is a fusion of theatre, film and music – a one woman performance with additional characters appearing on screen.
We caught up with Kevin in Chesterfield, a few weeks before rehearsals begin, to chat about his career, about the theatre scene in Mansfield and about the journey of Bess, from idea to stage.
Tell us a little bit about how you became a playwright and a writer
It’s a long story but I’ll try and keep it brief. I had a bit of an epiphany at age 15, at school, and, I was one of these kids that always felt I was good at something but couldn’t find out what it was, and when I took to writing, I knew immediately – that’s what I was looking for. Then of course you’ve got to go and prove it, haven’t you? It’s alright saying you want to do it, but you’ve got to do it. So you know, I went to University of Manchester at aged 18 and I decided I would spend three years writing, and at the end of that course I’d make a decision about whether it was for me and whether I was good enough. In my last year I had a play on at Edinburgh fringe with the university drama group and that kind of convinced me that ‘yeah I can do this’.
Then I went out and did any kind of manual labouring job during the day at wrote like a maniac at night for years, until I started selling plays, and then the big move, of course, is from selling them to getting commissions. And I’ve been doing it 30 years now.
Were you living in Manchester at this point?
Yeah, when I went to Manchester to study, I stayed on there. I knew I couldn’t be a writer in Mansfield at that time. You know, there was just no way you could do it. So I knew a city like Manchester would give me the opportunities to carve a career for myself, and that’s what I did. So, my early plays were at Contact Theatre in Manchester, and Manchester still feels like my working home. Even though I don’t live there anymore. I did live there for a long time forging a career.
So what made you return to Mansfield?
It was family reasons that brought me back, and knowing that I was at a point in my career where it didn’t matter too much where I live. Now, I can work from wherever I’m based.
Do you think the landscape’s changed in Mansfield at all? If you were starting out now, do you think there’s any more scope for people to work as writers?
It has changed. But there’s still a long way to go. And that’s the reason why organisations like First Art exist, for that very reason. You know, going back I could see that there were changes and there were quite a few local playwrights. That didn’t exist when I was 18. So, there is a growing, healthy scene of community theatre in Mansfield, which… it’s still not a situation where you could make a living as a writer. It would be very difficult still in Mansfield. I have to be honest when young writers say to me, you know, what’s your advice? I have to say, you need to go to one of the bigger cities. It’s the truth.
Arts Council England have announced the new round of National Portfolio Organisation funding today. There’s been a 4% shift from London to the regions, which equates to £170 million more going outside of London.
Well it’s long overdue. People have been saying it for a long time, but the arts are London centric. I think there’s more awareness of that from central government, and London knows that it’s not the only place where great work is created. Like I say, cities like Manchester have been self-sufficient in the arts for years. And don’t need London to survive.
About Bess
Why Bess?
The story behind this is quite interesting. I was contacted by an actress called Michelle Todd, who used to go to school with me, and it’s a typical Facebook story, isn’t it? You get this message saying, ‘do you remember me, I used to sit behind you at school and poke you in the back.’ And I said, ‘I bloody do. I do remember you.’
She said, ‘I didn’t know you’d become a playwright, and your name came up in conversation at home. You know, I didn’t know she’d become an international soprano and an actress, so when we met, it was only natural I think, for us to talk about work. And Michelle said to me, ‘look, I don’t know how you’d feel about this, but I really want to do a show around Bess of Hardwick, and how do you feel about putting some ideas together, to see if we can make it happen?’
Michelle gave me a slim volume that was an introduction to Bess’s life. I read that, got back in touch. I said ‘yeah, there’s a great story here. You know, there’s definitely a play here’. And so we met again and talked about what the nature of that play might be, and because Michelle was always keen that she would like to play Bess. That her interest was as an actress.We took it from there really, and First Art was an organisation that came to my mind quite quickly, because this is such an important historical figure, who’s not really been written about as the central character in a drama. She might appear in novels here and there, but there hasn’t been a drama around her life and this was an opportunity to do that, and I thought First Art might be interested in working with us on developing the piece, and that’s what’s happened, which has been fantastic. It wouldn’t have happened without First Art I don’t think, so that’s great.
Do you think it’s a good time to particularly write about a woman in history, and to have a leading woman?
I think there’s always room for dramas about strong female characters, but I think there’s definitely an interest in the Elizabethan period, which seems to be getting stronger rather than receding. If you look at contemporary films and drama, TV dramas. There have been quite a lot that have focussed on the Elizabethan period. You know, in particular Queen Elizabeth 1st, but I think there’s a real appetite for drama from that period, and I think we have a gem of a story here, around this historical figure, that hasn’t been told properly, and can speak about the culture of this part of the world.
It feels like you’ve really unearthed something.
You feel the responsibility of that as an artist. I want to create the best show I can, to create a portrait of this woman. In my portrait, Bess is very much a Derbyshire lass made good and, in private, still speaks with a Derbyshire accent. It will be my portrait, inevitably, because it’s me that’s writing it. And there’s room for lots of others. Other people are welcome to have a go, and create their take on who this woman was, but this is me trying to get inside the head of this character: what she must have been like, and the world in which she lived. How she managed to stay alive, to be honest, being so close to court, and so many people around her being executed, for various reasons, and yet she straddled that political line and made it work to her advantage. You know, to be lady in waiting to the Queen and to be friend and jailor of Mary Queen of Scots, puts her in a very difficult diplomatic position, and it would be so easy for her to take a wrong step and find herself executed. And yet she didn’t. She managed to play that, to play the hand she was dealt, and play it to her advantage and become the richest woman in Elizabethan England.
She must have been quite a diplomat? If she had existed today, would she have been Prime Minister?
She certainly, I think, has all the qualities of a diplomat, and yeah, if there was a Prime Minister of the time she would have given them a run for their money.
Did you find it challenging to adopt that voice, or to write in that period?
Yeah, course. You’ve got to do a lot of research to get a feel for what Elizabethan England was like. What interests me is what it was like for ordinary people, not just the rich. What was it like for her servants and your labourers of the day? And that requires a shift in the way you look at the world, because it’s seen as the birth of modern society, but it’s a long way from the way we live now, and it would be very easy for me to write a Bess who was a strong feminist character, but that would be completely wrong. Because she couldn’t possibly be driven by feminism in her time. She’s a creature of her age, as we all are. But there are things within her personality that you can identify as contemporary in that way. And then there are other things that would be very alien to a modern, successful business woman. So getting that balance is tricky.
As a playwright who is based locally, do you find it more interesting to find stories in the region? Is it important to you to tell local stories?
It is important. When the opportunity arises to tell a story from the area where I grew up, I’m very happy and grateful to do that. I wouldn’t want to just focus on that, otherwise my work wouldn’t appeal across the country if I just did that. But a show like this, you can play it anywhere. That’s the good thing about it. You could play this show internationally.
Interview took place on Tuesday, 27th June.
Additional words and questions by Gary Huddless (First Art Communications and Audience Development Officer)
Bess: The Commoner Queen will be at The Guildhall Derby from Thursday, 28th September until Sunday, 1st October. Tickets are £15 and are available via Derby Live. Box Office 01332 255800.
Click here for more information and to book tickets.
Preview performances in the First Art area will include:
Mansfield Library (script read and Q&A), Tuesday 18th July, Mansfield Library 2pm - 4pm. FREE
Creswell Social Centre (full performance), Friday, 22nd September (ticket details TBC)
+ One additional venue TBC. For more information, click here, or call 01909 720378 and ask for a member of the First Art team.
About The Author
Gary Huddless
First Art Communications and Audience Development Officer. Email communication@firstart.org.uk Tweet to @GHuddless
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